


Home For Christmas

by SigmaEnigma



Category: Rockman | Mega Man - All Media Types, Rockman | Mega Man Classic
Genre: Christmas, Holidays, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-23
Updated: 2014-12-23
Packaged: 2018-03-02 23:30:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2829977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SigmaEnigma/pseuds/SigmaEnigma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone deserves to be home for Christmas. Roll just wishes her brother would understand that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home For Christmas

            It’s a Tuesday, the coldest day of the week on the coldest week of the month. But inside, inside it is warm. Inside there is a clattering of dishes and boxes and every sort of decoration is being stuffed onto the equipment of the lab while just about every pot and pan is in use to cook a meal to feed over a dozen guests. So when Roll of all people calls a stop to her work, of course Rock is more than marginally shocked.

           “I forgot some groceries and I can’t finish making this meal without them!” She says it in a burst, jogging around everyone as she grabs her coat, bag, list, and a few other items that are quickly stuffed into that infinite holding canvas tote. “Check the oven in two hours and don’t you dare try to sneak anything.” Roll is out the door before anyone can defend themselves or ask what is in the oven or what should be done once the oven is checked, but she’s already halfway down the block when anyone realizes the importance of those factors.

           The grocery store is a good way from the labs in the way as far possible from good as it could be. However, it’s the perfect kind of good way away. The perfect cover story.

           Because of course, apartment buildings aren’t the kind of place you buy groceries. You do not purchase cheese by ringing a buzzer of a specific room. Nor do you buy onions and carrot in the same place where you need to be buzzed in by said resident of the room. You do not stuff yourself in an elevator with five other people at a grocery store either. To top it all off, you do not get off the twentieth floor of anything when buying groceries.

The only thing that the apartment building had in common with a grocery store was that being inside it felt like being stuck in the freezer section.

           “The coldest day and no one can turn on the heat?” The blonde robot shivers and hugs herself to keep warm. Hoping that where she was heading was at least a little warmer.

           She finally found the room at the farthest end of the hall, the door to it cracked and the paint on it faded. She knocks twice. First quickly, then slowly. Just as the note instructed. The wait is…well, a good while actually. She wonders if maybe she had written down the wrong room or if she misread the address, but all is calmed when the door finally opened.

           The small ball and chain lock keeps it from opening all the way, but there he is, sunglasses and all.

           “Hi, Blues.” Roll speaks in a whisper. As if someone somewhere in the supposedly empty hall was listening in.

           “Hey,” He shuts the door to undo the chain of the lock, gesturing for her to come in. “Bit early for visits, isn’t it?”

           “I was just in the neighborhood, thought I should drop by.” She half lies. The building was in the same area as the grocery store, not that that was her intended location. She steps inside and while the room was warmer than the hall and outside, it’s still not a huge change.

           However, to make up for the cold, the furniture is draped in several large blankets, all bundled up like the people in the streets below. The blankets, much like the furniture itself, are mismatched in both color and material, with holes and patches littering many of them, and threads hanging from their seams in every which way.

           “Still stealing?” Roll accuses. Eying two chairs that, at a quick glance, would appear to match, but on another viewing they are clearly two different shades of tan.

           “If you call dumpster diving ‘stealing’.” Blues takes his place on the couch, bundling himself in a blanket-made nest. Roll took the opposite side of the couch, stealing a blanket off an old and worn wicker chair.

           “Maybe you should invest in some heat.” Roll suggests. She could hear the sarcasm forming in Blues’ mouth before he even responded.

           “Sure, maybe a grand fireplace,” Blues gestures. His hands still under the blankets. “I’ll hang a chandelier and serve myself E-tanks of the finest quality, and drink them out of those little champagne flute glasses. Maybe I’ll even buy some nice curtains of silk and- you know what- silk everything. I’ll make the furniture lined with it!” The fantasy, though nice, oozed with bitterness in the vision Roll pictured. Like one of Dr. Light’s classic movies. Utopia through a mess of static and jumpy frames.

           “I don’t think you could do silk on furniture.” Blues snaps his head back towards Roll, almost forgetting she was there. Caught up in his own thoughts.

           “Suede then.” The older sibling shrugs. The thoughts of champagne glasses and luxury not something he truly wished to debate.

           “Like Dr. Light’s favorite chair.”

           “Like a lot of things.”

           “Like this couch.”

           “Like _a lot_ of things.”

           “Like this blanket.” She was leaning towards him, tugging at one of the many blankets that made up her older brother’s bundle.

           “Like _a lot of things_.” He slaps her hand away, not hard, but the intention was the same.

           They stay at opposite ends of the couch. Neither saying a word after that. They stay at opposite ends of the couch and of their thoughts and of their father’s worldly understanding.

           “I could come back,” Again, it was the younger sibling to break the silence of the visit. “With tools, fix your internal heating system’s wiring.”

           Again, it was the older sibling who stayed silent.

           “It must be damaged if you’re this cold. Though, I don’t know if you’ve found a coat in the dumpster along with this other stuff. Have you?”

           “No.”

           “I could bring you one. Along with the tools. I’m sure Dr. Light won’t miss a few tools. He can hardly keep track of what we have already. Plus, I don’t think he’d mind.” She gives him time to input. To give her more than lazy huffs and melodramatic shadows against the light the frosted windows cause. She gives him moments and seconds and minutes. She holds on to what she wants to add but waits so long to actually say. Not yet. Not yet. She needs to remind herself that.

           “You can’t change what happened.” It’s as if someone has flipped a switch. There her brother goes and in his place a stranger. Guard up once more.

           “I know.” It’s falling out. The words are screaming in the back of her throat. But Roll keeps calm all the same. Not yet. She has to keep reminding herself that.

           “What’s the bag for?”

           “Grocery shopping, for dinner.”

           “You should get going if you want to get that done.”

           “Do you want to come with me?” In the parts of his eyes that she can see, there’s a glint of…well of something. Confusion possibly. Probably. Most likely.

           “What? Why?” Definitely confusion.

           “Company? Maybe,” Here goes nothing. “Maybe you could pick out something you like.”

           There’s a whir from the older robot, his eyes looking around the room, even with the sunglasses on the noise is clear.

           “You should go.”

           “Blues-”

           “Just go, Roll.” His voice is rising.

           “You don’t need to stay for long. You don’t even need to talk to Dr. Light,” She speaking over the whir of his eyes and the spiral her brother is leading himself down. “You’re family, no one is going to mind-”

           “I mind!” Her brother stands, leaving the blankets behind on the couch. His joints creak and huff as the door is unlocked once more and Roll is firmly gestured out. “Now leave, He’ll be wondering where you are if you go missing.”

           It’s a stab the older model fully intended, the shock on his successor’s face the sort of thing that should be filling him with a bitter glee. Yes, how does she feel, knowing she’s nothing but a replacement? Let her feel guilt for doing what she and that brother of hers did. Proto stands in the doorway like a stranger, distant and demanding, glaring behind heavily shaded lenses.

           Roll stands as well, giving the apartment one last look before leaving. They part in silence aside from the deadbolt being set once the door is shut behind her.

 

           Dinner is a rush. Table sets being tossed and reset with silverware from every which place being laid out in a neat enough order. Guests enter just as Roll demands Rock carry another overfilled bowl of stuffing to the far left end of the table. Hellos are said in a warm and friendly manner, people sit and gossip and bring up small talk and big talk. Debates are minimal say for the occasional playful banter not meant to be taken seriously in the slightest. Roll is thanked for the unending platters and she thanks the others in return, refusing to take all the credit.

           Plates are taken and plates remain. Savory being traded for sweets and caffeine joining wines and other drinks. Dr. Light and Dr. Cossack begin a round of an old holiday song along with Guts and Splash. No one notices as Roll slips out of the house, tote bag under arm.

           She makes the trek to the now bitterly cold apartment building and hangs a wreath on the door of fading color and chipping paint before knocking. Twice fast, twice slow.

           Roll leaves the box in front of the door. Already in the elevator when said door finally opens. On the way home, she tries to imagine the reactions his face could take. The happier ones not fitting, but she stays hopeful all the same.

           The next morning. She gets out of bed, a mechanical child, but holidays exciting her no less than a child of flesh and bone. However, stepping foot on the floor, her feet are met with patches of damp carpet and cold, unmelted bits of snow. She’s ready to scream and go marching down the hall to scold Ice Man’s ear off when she notices a box, also damp and covered in mostly melted snow.

           The same box she left at the door.

           She sighs. Trying to reason in her mind that maybe she had gotten the wrong item, and perhaps she can return this one or give it to someone else. Then she looks closer at the box. Though the same box and ribbon, the wrapping is much too hasty to be hers. The ribbon is clearly taped down to give the appearance of being tied and- and she’s opening it. Slowly, at first, treating the package as a possible threat, there was no knowing. Then she picks up the pace, tearing off the resealed wrapping paper and tugging at the ribbon, her knees cold from the floor but she ignores it.

           The item inside is too small for the package, and is of course thrown together because knowing her brother this was obviously made as an apology rather than a straight up gift. She doesn’t even care.

           In the early sunlight and florescent lab lighting she watches the way her hands reflect in the key’s surface. The metal new and from the way it’s grooves edge they’re freshly cut. It’s sat on a key ring joined with a small cat. An attempt on trying to make the whole thing humorous and familiar.

           She stashes it under her pillow, then in one of her drawers after arguing with herself over which drawer she should even put it in. She reads over the note scribbled in her brother’s quick hand scrawl onto the tissue paper she had packed the original gift with.

_“Come by whenever you like.”_

 

              


End file.
